James Potter's Midlife Crisis (Oneshot)
by batdude
Summary: He knew, he knew he was hardly eleven years old and he had no right to call it a "midlife" crisis, seeing as he knew he wouldn't die at the age of 22. No, indeed, he planned to live to the ripe old age of 153 and fall to his death from a broomstick in a league match for the Quidditch World Cup, after winning the award for Oldest Quidditch Player Ever. (Happy Birthday Maddy!)


James Potter's Midlife Crisis

It was James Potter's eleventh birthday and he was having a midlife crisis.

He knew, he _knew_ he was hardly eleven years old and he had no right to call it a "midlife" crisis, seeing as he _knew_ he wouldn't die at the age of 22. No, indeed, he planned to live to the ripe old age of 153 and fall to his death from a broomstick in a league match for the Quidditch World Cup, after winning the award for Oldest Quidditch Player Ever. But his mother constantly talked about how his father was going through a midlife crisis, and he decided he must share in this interesting sounding crisis. (But actually, he was having a crisis of sorts.)

He wasn't sure which broom to take to Hogwarts in a few months. He didn't know whether he should bring a pewter cauldron or a better kind. And worst of all, he had no clue what Hogwarts house he'd be sorted into.

His father was a Gryffindor, and his mother had been, too. What if he'd be sorted into Smelly Slytherin? There was a bloke on his street who was one. Lucius Malfoy, who was fifteen, was rather a bully and just very unpleasant indeed. He was one of those teenagers who would throw Dungbombs at the Potter's house, who would replace ever-trusting James's chocolate-covered peanut clusters with Cockroach Clusters, who would hex their house with "blood traitor" or "Mudblood-lover" in permanent ink. James's parents seemed to think that he was much too young to understand about all that political stuff, but he understood that Lucius was a Bad Bloke.

After all, James's best friend up until then was a Muggle-born wizard—Reginald Cattermole, who was a year older than him and had already started his first year of Hogwarts, and had been sorted into Ravenclaw. James had noticed that all of the Ravenclaws he knew had unfortunate names. What kind of parents hated their child enough to name them something as horrific as Reginald, honestly. The poor child went by Reg at school and Reggie by some of the more daring girls in his grade. Reg was extremely good at magic and he'd been born to a Muggle family, so why in heaven's name did Lucius Malfoy insist on being such a—pardon his French—_twat_? (If anyone had told Mrs. Potter that James occasionally stooped to using such language, she would have pooh-poohed the suggestion at once—her baby was perfect. James quite appreciated his mother's blind spot towards some of his flaws. It helped him get away with troublemaking.)

He and Reg had drifted apart slightly in the past year, much to James's dismay. James understood Reg had his new Ravenclaw friends from Hogwarts, but he was quite upset that Reg hadn't bothered to keep in touch enough. He felt such staunch loyalty towards his friends that his mother had said he'd probably be a Hufflepuff, if not for his reckless and daring streak which would surely place him in Gryffindor.

And there it was—it all came down to that. Into which house would he be sorted? As equally as he adored his mother, James admired his father with all his heart. He was an Auror—how cool was _that_? At the Wizarding Toy Store down in London, they made action figures out of famous Aurors and Quidditch players. James owned about three magical action figures of his own father, all given to him by the delighted Mr. Potter himself. He took great pride in the fact that along with keeping the Dark Arts suppressed, wizarding children everywhere would be playing with his toy.

He wanted to be in Gryffindor, like his father. For some reason being a Gryffindor brought to his mind images of knights riding on horses in armies, so he practiced his swordsmanship long and hard—with his toy sword, of course. His mother, no matter how hard James begged, refused point-blank to buy him a real one. It was very unfortunate indeed.

James had debated time and time again between the owl, cat, and toad. He had decided about a month ago that a black cat with green eyes would be extremely ideal. He would name him Sir Urquhart the Unbeatable and make him his knightly cat. His father had laughed uproariously at the name, much to James's indignation.

But for his birthday his mother, much to James's delight, had given him a tiny little orange kitten as a present. She told him that she had looked for months for the bravest, most intelligent cat she could find. He was purebred, trained from infancy. The only condition was that James did not name him Sir Urquhart the Unbeatable. That was okay, though, because he had a backup name. The kitten, much to the amusement of his father, was thus dubbed Sir Algernon the Almighty. He began teaching the dismayed kitten how to fetch things for him, because, he reasoned, such a skill would be _bloody _useful in a castle as enormous as Hogwarts.

He knew he still had six months until he left to Hogwarts, but James Potter's existential crisis was quite a serious one. He wanted his scraggly little orange kitten to match scarlet Gryffindor. He wanted to someday make the Quidditch team and play for the sea of scarlet- and gold-clad crowd. He wanted a broomstick. He wanted more than anything to own the brand new racing broom—the Nimbus 1990. It was the fastest model, had the smoothest maneuverability, made the least jagged turns—it was a dream, and the adverts in Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley had said that flying a Nimbus 1990 was like flying on a cloud. James didn't really believe that you could fly on a cloud, since they seemed so wispy and as if they wouldn't really support an adult's weight, let alone his own, but it was a good metaphor.

His father had been too busy with his Auror job to teach James to really fly on a broomstick, so that task fell to his mother—who, having been on the Gryffindor Quidditch team herself as the seeker, was quite excellent. James knew he was ahead of his entire year and would pass his Flying class with—well, with flying colors.

James couldn't wait for classes, he couldn't wait to make Algernon fetch him things from the Hogwarts kitchens, he couldn't wait to get a new broomstick, but most of all, James Potter couldn't wait to start Hogwarts and finally feel like he fit in somewhere.


End file.
